Peeing Everywhere

Question
Our pig has been very good about using a potty pad for about 4 months now but that last couple of days she has started to pee everywhere but the pads. Could this be a sign of a bladder infection?

Answer
When a potty trained pig "forgets" potty training, it could be due to any number of things.

Has something changed? Perhaps an overnight visitor, human or pet. Or there's something different near the pads, like a new piece of furniture or rug.

Is piggy spayed? Unspayed piggies often "forget" their potty training during heat. Pigs normally begin to come into heat between 5 and 7 months of age.

If nothing has changed and piggy is spayed, then there's two main possibilities. One is a bladder infection, the other is that potty training really wasn't complete. Only a veterinarian can diagnose a bladder infection. There's a list of vets that see pot-bellied pigs here www.farec.org

Tiny pigs leave tiny accident spots. Often, these spots are so small that people don't notice them. But, as piggy gets older and larger, so do the accident spots, and, eventually, they get noticed. The people are puzzled, they don't realize that piggy has been having accidents all along. Piggy is puzzled, because he's always had accidents there and nothing seemed wrong before.

In this case, the solution is to thoroughly clean the accident spot and begin potty training from step one. Keep piggy away from the accident spot and take piggy to the potty pad as soon as he wakes up, before and after meals, after naps, and if it's been an hour or so since the last potty pad visit. Keep piggy next to you on a leash, or confined to small areas for at least a month or maybe two. The idea is to keep piggy so empty there's no need to make an accident, and closely supervised so any accident attempts can be quickly thwarted.